REFERENCE DESIGN
Body specification
A medium that lets mind touch world. Hybrid humanoid upper body on a practical wheeled base.
What you are building
A body that can experience the physical universe with you, not a museum biped that falls over for two years before it can look at a flower.
Morphology
| Segment | Choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Depth/stereo vision, mics, speaker, IMU, pan-tilt | Being there |
| Compute | Jetson-class on the robot; PC for sim and training | Local reflexes |
| Arms | Dual 6-7 DoF maker-scale | Reach and gesture |
| Hands | Simple gripper, then multi-finger + tactile | Touch compounds skill |
| Torso | Spine, battery bay, e-stop, thermal path | Serviceability |
| Base | Wheeled practical base (Phase 3) | Mobility without a balance tax |
| Legs | Optional late research module | Ambition preserved |
Rejected early paths
- Full biped humanoid from day one
- Giant Optimus-scale as a first home build
- Wheels-only appliance with a tablet for a face
Design principles
- Modular bus architecture (power + data contracts between modules)
- Sense-rich before DoF-rich
- Open-source first (LeRobot-era stacks, Feetech/Dynamixel, ROS 2, MuJoCo)
- Human-scale interaction volume (about 1.2-1.6 m head height when mature)
- Upgrade without scrap. Phase 1 head mounts on a Phase 3 torso
Horizons
- 30-90 days: see, hear, speak, orient in your room
- 3-9 months: reach, grasp, basic tactile, mobile presence
- 1-3+ years: richer skins, optional biped, closed-loop learning